The present invention relates to a machine for folding and applying onserts onto consumer goods, such as cigarette packs, and more particularly to a machine for folding onserts in side-by-side pairs from an endless roll of preprinted material, cutting the pairs into individual folded onserts, and transporting the onserts along dual paths for application to cigarette packs traveling along dual paths.
Particularly in the case of cigarette packs, there is an increasing need for the packs to include printed onserts containing information about the cigarettes and/or serving as a medium for advertising purposes. In other instances, such onserts may take the form of a coupon providing eligibility for the consumer to participate in prize drawings and the like. In the case of cigarette packs which are usually provided with an outer wrap of transparent film, printed onserts may be positioned between the pack and the outer wrap whereby the onsert can be seen from the outside when the pack and outer wrap are still intact. When positioned between the pack and the outer wrap the onsert may be placed directly onto the pack and subsequently wrapped, or the onsert may be initially placed onto the flexible outer wrap before the pack is wrapped with such material.
Currently many onserts are pre-folded and delivered to cigarette packs via stacks of individual pre-folded onserts. Disadvantages of this approach involve the overall expense and difficulty of making pre-folded bobbins or stacks of individual printed onsert material. Moreover, individual onserts are difficult to handle at cigarette packaging machines that operate at extremely high production speeds in that the onserts tend to jam quite easily, and therefore require intensive operator intervention for feeding them to applicators that deliver and apply the onserts to the cigarette packs.